A Slant Blow
by chomusubi
Summary: Kazaam! A whole chapter (prologue, I guess). An AU setting, that painfully original one where we stick characters in high school for or own amusement. Behold the omnipotence of fanfictiondom. GojyoxSanzo (review-only you can prevent forest fires.)


A Slant Blow

[_good ole Homer, always there with the titles don't have the foggiest what this has to do with the story, but we xhall wait and see *nod* ho-hum, not much to say here. *sweats*]_

Sha Gojyo was not a patient person. He was not in a rush to get back to the campus particularly, rather to get out of the bus stop. Smelling old, stale smoke and wishing passionately for a cigarette of his own, Gojyo inspected the scratched fogged walls of the stop with a fascination borne of sheer boredom. Hasty obscenities etched with an old pair of keys, mostly, fevered proclamations of love (or wishful thinking) and quite a few names. All of these people who he didn't know, those who had long ago worn any splinters out of the wooden bench were strangely like himself. In that they waited for the bus, smoked, and told the world in no uncertain terms where to shove its attitude. 

Tracing the angular, sloppy hiragana with an idle finger, he heard a car alarm go off somewhere, heard a few angry male voices and the squeal of tires, nearer to him now. He saw the neon lights flicker to life across the street. It had long since gotten dark, sooner today because winter was approaching with a sort of morbid, energetic intent on freezing him. Dark- there were quite a few stories about this "side of town" (though, technically, it was the center) at night. None of which bothered Gojyo in the least- he was part of the reason people were afraid. And so, according to some perverse but effective logic, he was somewhat protected.

Finally the bus rolled up, keening as it slowed and stopping with a vocalization like an arthritic sitting down. Gojyo was off the bench and inside the bus a breath before the double doors lurched closed, producing his (somewhat) wrinkled ticket and making a token attempt to smooth it against his thigh before giving it to the driver and moving to the back of the bus.

He put the old, blue Jansport backpack on one of the plastic seats, sitting down next to it, putting his chin in his hands and his elbows on his knees, staring listlessly out the window across from him. The bus had plastic seats, he observed that it was weird a little belatedly- buses usually had cloth seats or at least vinyl.

Testament to the sort of people they expected to serve. Bus company didn't want the seats to smell like smoke and blood and anything else that could be removed from plastic with much less difficulty. But for all their precautions, the vehicle wasn't packed to the gills with gangs and druggies and other nameless felons trying to find space to kill each other or take their drugs. There were three other people, two seniors he had seen on campus once or twice, and a nervous looking young woman. Hardly anyone to be afraid of. Or anyone that would do. He briefly entertained the thought of flirting with her, but the idea was killed when she hurried off the bus a stop later.

The bus bumped along, not moving quickly, per se, but quickly enough so that all he could see of the town were bright lights, fading in an out as they rolled past them. They stopped at once more, to pick up another person. A tall, thin and overly backlit form, carrying a duffel bag and a backpack that turned out to be his former roommate Cho Hakkai in the (considerably more substantial, if a very unflattering shade of yellow) light inside the bus.

"What brings you here?" Hakkai asked with a smile. Hakkai was always smiling, the idea that someone could always smile and yet the though of Hakkai with any other expression both ludicrous. But that was Hakkai owner of seven different ways to smile, each conveying a different emotion.

"Back atcha" Gojyo grabbed the handle of his backpack and moved it to another seat, indicating that Hakkai should take its freshly vacated spot. 

Hakkai nodded, (smiling) put his baggage down at his feet and stared ahead with Gojyo a moment before starting conversation.

"So where did you go over break?" they were both coming back to their school from a prolonged vacation – a sort of distorted version of summer break that involved release in August and resumed torture in mid November. 

Gojyo didn't honestly know where Hakkai went off to – neither of them had family that they knew of anywhere, but Hakkai always left, and didn't return until he had to. 

"Nowhere. Stayed on campus and got to keep my old dorm. Getting a new roommate, though. Ought to be interesting." He hadn't a real reason for being out tonight, honestly he hadn't wanted to meet the next invader of his personal space, so he had gone up town and restocked. Mostly on cigarettes because those stores didn't ID. Which explained the backpack. "You?"

"Maa worked a while. Nothing much, really.."

Gojyo nodded and decided not to pry.

The silence resumed, the lights outside running across their faces as they stared blankly ahead, not really thinking of anything and not speaking. It wasn't uncomfortable, things were never uncomfortable around Hakkai (Gojyo wondered what it must be like to have that effect on people – to know that somehow you radiated peace and calm. And he wondered if Hakkai was even aware of it.) but it was strange, somehow. He and Hakkai had been very close last year, both of them freshmen, bewildered at the sheer size of college and the classes and mostly living in what seemed like the nastier half of a closet with a person they had never met. And he's found a lot of himself in Hakkai, a lot of the loss and pain that he felt, and a whole hell of a lot of understanding. 

He had never quite known what happened to that relationship.

But things were never uncomfortable around Hakkai, so it didn't matter.

The bus made two more stops, one of which was to pick up more students. 

Fifteen more minutes. There were no more passengers, and none on the bus spoke. Quiet. Buzzing yellow lights.

They screeched to a stop at the gates, sending Gojyo reeling out of whatever half-asleep stupor he had fallen into.

Back to school.

That could never bode well.

A/N: _I spent this longon a _bus ride_? Oh my, I've finally lost itkyaaa, anyhow, it's going to be Gojyo x Sanzo (the poor ignored pairing) even if it doesn't look like it now. Ah well. Tis a first try. Ah yes. Review – remember that what goes around comes around (meaning that I will review all my reviewersthat's not a threat to put nice comments! Yipe!). uh. Yeah. *^^*_

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